Talk:Science in Medieval Western Europe

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[edit] PROD proposal

The following is a copy of the comments for the proposed deletion (taken from the Science in the Middle Ages article). --Mcorazao (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Is "Middle Ages" European?

Mcorazao has raised a difficult issue, and any solution to it will have to involve drawing a somewhat arbitrary line. The question is whether we mean by the term "Middle Ages" anything that happened between 450 and 1350 (or thereabouts), or do we mean a historically defined event in the history of Europe? As a historian, I am disturbed about the implications of the simple chronological definition; if we used it, then a discussion of Inca, Maya, and Aztec science would belong in this article. The article should have more focus than that, and I see historical interaction as the simplest way to rule out the American contributions.

To most medievalists, the Middle Ages is generally characterized as referring to a period in European (sometimes Western European) history. This pattern is reflected in Wikipedia on WP:WikiProject Middle Ages, Portal:Middle Ages, and Category:Middle Ages. From that perspective, an article on Science in the Middle Ages should focus primarily on Science in Europe, and touch tangentially on contemporary developments of science in other parts of the world -- especially when science in those areas influenced science in medieval Europe. In that regard, science in Islam is an important player, science in India had largely an indirect influence (by way of Islam), science in Byzantium had little (and late) influence, as Byzantine influence in Western Europe was chiefly,but not exclusively, associated with the Renaissance, and Science in China had very little influence.

I suggest those as guidelines for the organization of this article, and that concept was reflected in my proposed outline.

Turning to a related issue, from this perspective the recent fork to create a new article Science in Medieval Western Europe is undesirable and I would recommend deleting the new article. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

(See the discussion on the Science in the Middle Ages talk page)

It seems to me there is not going to be a simple "meeting of the minds" here so I'll propose that we open this up for commentary. I'll just briefly restate my opinion that I believe that an article focused on Western Europe (even if it briefly mentions other cultures) should indicate that in the title (hence the reason I created this article) and that it is appropriate to make the Science in the Middle Ages article more generic about the world as a whole. That doesn't mean that it has to name scientific accomplishments of each and every culture on the planet but it should not favor Europe simply because it is Europe.

Also, to clarify for anybody who has not been part of the discussion, the two articles currently share a lot of content. This is obviously because there is no consensus to reduce content in the Science in the Middle Ages article not because they are intended to be duplicates.

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. An additional comment: The Science in the Middle Ages article is currently used as a sub-article for the History of Science article, specifically for the time period, not the geography. That article is not intended to be Eurocentric. So either that should not be referring to Science in the Middle Ages as a chronological article or else Science in the Middle Ages has the wrong focus (which is what I am suggesting). --Mcorazao (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Science in the Middle Ages: --Mcorazao (talk) 02:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If this was purely to do with terminology, I think I would agree with SteveMcCluskey. However, I don't think it is - there was enough interaction between China, India, the Muslim world and (even if mainly through the Muslim world) western Europe during the period to justify an article surveying science in all four geographical areas during some period roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. And, particularly allowing for the amount of material, this should probably not be the same article as the detailed one on medieval western European science. So in practice I agree with Mcorazao, though further consideration of the titles (and possibly the exact scopes) of both articles may be advisable. PWilkinson (talk) 19:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Science in the Middle Ages: --Mcorazao (talk) 02:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

(De-dent) I agree with those people who think that there needs to be a world-wide article about science during this period (exact timescale to be decided). I also agree that there is enough detailed information about the history of science in Western Europe for there to be a sub-article about science in Western Europe during this period. Likewise, there should ideally be more sub-articles about science in China / the Arab World / etc. If you read the wikipedia guideline on summary style, you can see how such articles should be structured: a broad overview, split into detailed sub-articles where appropriate. Bluap (talk) 23:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)